Community Glossary

[Linkzelda]

@Yori,

 

Well it's definitely a sign that you'll have to start improving on your cognition and overall competence to get the points I'm stating. And it's definitely a sign for me to learn how to relate to others better (and this isn't making a presumption that I'm superior in anything), so we don't end up taking most of the thread clearing misconceptions.

 

Of course, I guess that's another point of this thread, so we don't start questioning too much on another person's tonality/inferences/etc., and can actually start cracking down on a consensus on the glossary in the near future. And this part isn't directed to you Yori, just to save the hassle of us having to go through clarifying.

[Zero]

Hallucinations is when you perceive stimulis that's not there and imagination is your imagining stuffs. K.

 

So insightful.

[NotAnonymous]

The definitions of the listed words as I tend to use them (depending on context) - most of them try to be as close as possible to the original meanings the terms had (more than a year ago) and some added clarifications/current personal interpretation of each term and in a few cases examples of other uses found in the community, but which I don't always use myself:

 

Personality:

Varies per context:

colloquial use: the complex of behavioral and psychological patterns that make up an individual,

working on a tulpa: a variety of methods to influence a tulpa's personality or give them one. Example methods: FAQ_Man's trait list, narration, JD1215's parroting/roleplaying method, Bluesleeve's essence guide, etc. My personal favorite is thinking about how certain traits feel on an implicit/preconscious/raw thought/emotional level and expecting the tulpa's essence/presence to feel like that - typically far more intuitive than the other methods and gives tangible results faster.

when talking about the self and multiplicity: a subjective individual or a 'self' or a (philosophical) person: has a consciousness, its own (free) will and sense of will/agency (different and independent of other personalities if more than one is present), a working memory, sometimes different accessible long-term and short-term memories, a distinct complex of behavioral and psychological patterns, preferences and so on. I don't use it much as it seems too few people like this term: multiples find it derogatory because they think it refers to the colloquial meaning (and thus it makes them less of a person and more of a persona - they may use the colloquial meaning), while people who don't believe multiple persons can share a brain find it a bad term because it implies multiple consciousness(they don't use the colloquial meaning). People who tend to be metaphysically inclined may sometimes refer to this as a "soul", although that term is even more ambiguous - I've once seen someone try and list possible meanings for "soul" and "consciousness" and they reached about 20 commonly used definitions for the first and over 10 for the later. Nevertheless, you as a person know what it is like to be one and what that entails - and if you ignore the bit about having a physical body and only look at subjectively accessible content (consciousness/subjective experiences, memories, will), you'll be intuitively familiar with what this term means.

 

A tulpa is essentially an intentionally created new personality (in the meaning of 'self'/consciousness, not the colloquial use) which seemingly works in parallel with you and is autonomous (has its own will). The actual amount of neural circuitry/pattern that they share with you can vary quite a lot (or little), although how much (or little that is) is unknown. Some people's tulpas are quite different behaviorally from themselves, while others may be far closer. That said, a tulpa is not a persona or a mask (a personality template/state) which you're just changing to based on circumstances and which you're consciously controlling, even if a tulpa may have their own personas if they wish.

Some people have used the term "accidental tulpa" to describe non-intentionally created personalities which have appeared. This definition essentially classifies a tulpa as being a form of self-induced multiplicity. Subjectively it should feel like you have another (subjective) person in your mind which does their own thing and thinks and acts not unlike you do.

While this definition is closer to what most people have used originally, it seems a few people nowadays would wish for a tulpa to be an advanced imaginary friend - in which case some of the definitions used here can't apply to them.

 

Visualization:

Using your imagination or mind's eye. Thinking in other ways than 'words'. Includes not only sensory thoughts you generate yourself, by anything from your unconscious - which doesn't have to feel self-generated.

 

Visualization can eventually be as vivid as real senses, although it's not commonly confused with them and most individuals can tell the difference between what comes from their physical senses and what is generated/sourced internally by their mind.

There are many different ways of visualizing, closed-eye and open-eyed (daydreaming), some may involve trance states, others may be merely thinking in different ways. Visualization encompasses any sense we may have (visuals, auditory, touch, olfactory, emotions, etc). I would even argue that one could "visualize" more abstract things like personalities - it counts as visualization as long as it's a thought which has a directly accessible qualia. However, I'm not sure it counts as visualization when the content is too abstract and has to be parsed by the rational mind - anything which has too many levels of abstractions and can't be directly sensed might not count as visualization.

Closed-eye visualization may sometimes dip into closed-eye hallucinations or sometimes even dreaming or lucid dreaming (if you fall asleep). It's possible for visualization to be directed by yourself, directed by the tulpa, uncontrolled or controlled by your unconscious, partially influenced by yourself and the tulpa and many other possibilities.

 

tl;dr: Thinking/experiencing without using words which results in a variety of (rich) qualia. Abstract reasoning may be excluded due to qualia being insufficiently rich (this may be wrong for some people, for example someone with synesthesia).

 

 

Narration:

Talking to the tulpa.

 

In practice this should mean talking to the tulpa, while expecting them to hear you and possibly understand you - expecting them to be able to perceive you. Doing it without that is not that useful.

It's not "talking to yourself". If someone can't find the difference between talking to themselves and talking to the tulpa, they'll need to find a way to treat the tulpa as a person, basically make it so that on some unconscious/implicit level they believe they're sharing their mind with another person - the personality stage usually results in this, although "pure" narration-only tulpa creation is possible, but only if the person can actually find a way to think of another individual actually hearing them - not just an abstract individual, but someone that's actually there for them *now*.

It sometimes results in you perceiving an unique set of feelings, emotions/moods which are associated with the tulpa - it's essentially giving the tulpa attention, perceiving them and getting the tulpa to think about what you're saying at the same time.

When done correctly, it develops sentience and independence.

 

tl;dr: Narration is talking to the tulpa and implicitly knowing they hear you, it feels subjectively different from inner monologue.

 

 

Imposition:

Hallucination or pseudo-hallucination (hallucination which you (implicitly) know is a hallucination) of something being in your physical environment. Typically done on purpose. Not to be confused with psychotic hallucinations, although may be similar to dissociative pseudo-hallucinations.

 

It could also be considered as visualizing something vividly while having an implicit belief that you're picking it up with your physical senses. I suspect there may be different types of imposition which behave different neurologically and the methods used to train them are different - for example the Advanced Vision Control tutorial/guide seems to result in more subconsciously controlled hallucinations, while someone perfecting daydreaming and modifying their memories on the fly (such as "imposing" the tulpa on their memories) so that they can't see behind the tulpa, may get slightly different (but safer) results. A third distinct possibility is that learning one way of imposition gives you the other and thus they're more or less the same thing. This is an area where there hasn't been enough research done to know for sure.

Imposition does imply mixing physical senses and imagination equally - where both are as powerful/vivid.

What I don't think counts as imposition: hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations (happen naturally when falling asleep or waking up), lucid dreams/dreams, full sensory dissociation where you're only sensing your imagination (such as with switching), some involuntary/uncontrolled hallucinations such as those caused by psychosis or schizophrenia, closed-eye hallucinations (such as when meditating), hallucinations caused by drugs or various physical illness.

In some cases the term self-imposition is used by some people to mean a tulpa projecting their form into your environment, this mean that you're not expending much (if any) conscious effort to perceive the tulpa, although it may still be a daydream, unless your visualization of the tulpa is pretty much perfect and persistent to the point it it being a pseudo-hallucination.

As visuals aren't the only sense you can hallucinate, it applies to all senses. Some senses may be easier "fooled" than others, a lot of people tend to "impose" a spatial presence first with their tulpa and then let the other senses follow naturally.

 

 

Possession:

Someone (such as a tulpa or sometimes, the host) controlling the physical body non-exclusively (sharing with someone, such as the host) by using their own intent/will.

 

Assisted possession would be translating the intent of someone into movements yourself - essentially proxying movements.

Unassisted possession would be someone (such as the tulpa) sending the signals directly to the body. Tends to feel subjectively different for the other party in the body. May result in partial sensory dissociation. A tulpa moving the body should not result in you feeling any intent from yourself to move the body, however it's entirely possible for both you and the tulpa to send different commands to the body at the same time, essentially both the tulpa and the host (or even more than one tulpa) controlling the body at the same time.

The default meaning for possession has always been that of unassisted possession for me, but I tend to specify this more clearly as some people have redefined it to mean assisted possession (which is essentially proxying movements or autopilot).

Full-body possession is just unassisted possession, but applies to the entire body - the party is "present" and controlling the entire body. However, since it's "possession", another party (such as the host), may be sitting back and watching as the body is controlled. Does typically result in (a lot more) sensory dissociation for the party that is watching. Under some circumstances, it's possible for sensory dissociation to become sufficiently strong to the point where imaginary senses are stronger (or physical senses feeling too weak or nonexistent) to the point where the other party "switches" and is just sensing their imagination.

Unassisted possession requires an independent or autonomous tulpa, or at least a good degree of autonomy, however this is not to say that merely practicing unassisted possession isn't a way for the tulpa to learn to become autonomous - after all, independence/autonomy is just the tulpa learning to do things by themselves.

 

 

Switching:

A process by which one party fully dissociates from their physical senses with another party taking complete control of the body.

 

The main difference between this and possession is that one party is no longer 'present' in the body, no longer sensing the physical senses and the party which is in the body may not be sensing the "switched" party as being 'present' in the body.

If a "switched" person (host or tulpa) ends up focusing on their physical senses it turns into possession (for them).

Most of the time switching is used to mean that one party (such as the host) is sensing their wonderland/mindscape fully vividly without being actively aware of their physical senses, while the tulpa is actively controlling the body and sensing through it.

The term switching tends to imply a change in roles and senses: one party who sensed the physical one is sensing imaginary senses, while the other who sensed imaginary senses is sensing physical ones (along with the change in control).

Switching is sometimes considered to be a host skill as it's mostly about the host learning to let go of focus on physical senses. While a tulpa may help (such as by learning to do possession unassisted - you can't switch when possession is assisted, if that wasn't obvious), it's the job of the host to actually learn how to switch.

The requirement for sensory dissociation and unassisted possession implies a requirement for an independent/sentient tulpa, that is a tulpa which has their own will independent of yours.

 

Both possession and switching describe a change in the amount of senses and control over the physical body between 2 persons.

I've noticed that multiples have more precise terms for these, such as: 'fronting' (or being in the 'back') to describe how much (or little) focus one has on the body's senses and motor skills. Along with other terms such as co-consciousness, co-presence/co-location, etc.

These terms don't seem to sound as well and aren't as liked in the tulpa community, although having a term describe the amount of sensory dissociation (or lack of it) for *one* party only would be better - both switching and possession attempt to model changes in the amount of senses that reach both of the people involved, but can't fully describe every possibility and sometimes result in more confusion about what someone really means.

In some cases, it's possible for a party which is dissociated from senses (be it tulpa or host) to stop thinking, that is, for them to stop driving their inner monologue and perception - such as them pausing themselves or going to sleep or merely stopping thinking. This is still usually considered as switching, even if only one party is truly actively conscious there. Some people may incorrectly dub this 'egocide', although I think that's a misnomer as a period of inactivity isn't really death and said inactivity could be easily be stopped by any number of triggers or even a bit of attention from someone which is actively conscious (anyone actually controlling the body is forced by the physical senses to be conscious).

 

There's also some people that can't switch/possess and try to redefine the term so that they can say they can switch, which sometimes is followed by other people using their definition and the original, more useful meaning is diluted - usually resulting in 2 people claiming they can do the same thing when their experiences are completely different.

Example redefinitions may include changing your behavior from your usual one to the tulpa's personality (colloquial use), without a change in consciousness or memories.

 

 

Sensory sharing:

You showing some sense to the tulpa or the tulpa focusing on some physical sense. Focusing on a physical sense.

 

Most tulpas tend to start being conscious in a sort of dissociative state where they're sensing imagination fully vividly (ex. with some similarities to a lucid dream). Focusing on senses allows them to partially or fully sense things the same way as you do.

Most hosts tend to be focused on physical senses by default.

 

 

Sensory dissociation:

Disconnecting or stopping sensing a sense or multiple senses partially or fully. Being fully or partially disconnected from physical senses.

 

A complete form of sensory dissociation where you (the host) stop sensing your physical senses fully would result in switching if the tulpa is controlling the body.

Most hosts start focused fully on their senses, while most tulpas start being focused mostly on the imagination.

 

 

Emotional Response:

A tulpa sending you emotions on their own. Commonly treated as an early indicator of sentience/independence. Can happen at any time, although commonly happens first when narrating or during the personality stage.

It's just another form of communication, a rather direct one at that. It makes for good early communication as emotions aren't things we can control too easily and the tulpa having emotions is as involuntary as you having an emotion (unless you're purposefully trying to emulate or recall an emotion, but that feels different).

It feels distinctly different from perceiving your own emotions and moods and most of the time you'll implicitly know that an emotion came from the tulpa, especially if you're talking to them.

One way to try describing it is by saying that you're constantly having a set of moods, but you're used to feeling those emotions and used to being in those moods that you don't notice them, while when a tulpa has an emotion or sends you one (or intends you to perceive some emotion), you're forced to experience a complex of emotions and moods outside those you're used to and it's something you'll usually know when you experience it. This is not to say that emotional responses can't be subtle or not sufficiently strong for you to easily perceive - it's your job to learn to sense your tulpa, that's what spending time with your tulpa is for! As long as the tulpa is sentient they'll typically feel emotions and can also get you to experience some of their emotions and thoughts - which you'll usually recognize as being theirs.

---

Parallel Processing:

The ability for the tulpa to function/think at the same time as you. It is directly linked with (if not implies) independence/autonomy and the ability for the tulpa to hide thoughts from you, or think by themselves.

 

This isn't a term I use much as nobody can fully agree on its meaning. Most people seem to think it implies independence as a minimum, but some people think it may also mean other things, such as the ability to reason long chains of logical thoughts while dissociated from senses (a tulpa in the wonderland, a host which is switched or "in the back" or dissociated from senses and so on).

Other people may also imply that it means having 2 separate points of focus/attention for each party which are active at the same time.

Since we don't know enough about how a tulpa and a host's working memory and attention works, it's hard to say if it's physically processed in parallel (even if our brain is massively parallel) or if the parallelism is a result of some rapid switching between personalities - which would imply that our 'self' is a very high-level/emulated construct.

Either hypothesis for how tulpas work has some evidence supporting it, but it's still not something which we know for sure.

While the nature of parallel processing is unclear, there is one thing which we do know - most people with independent tulpas do experience them acting on their own at the same time as themselves and without requiring their active focus - subjectively it feels as if the personalities are parallel for all intents and purposes, regardless of how the implementation is done neurologically.

 

 

Independence/autonomy:

The tulpa being able to think (and focus attention) independent of you and having a will of their own which is different from your own will.

 

It sometimes implies being able to think privately and without you being aware of their thoughts. That is, it also implies that some thoughts are being hidden (such as pre-conscious thoughts) and that they don't enter your awareness unless there's some intent from either side for them to enter your awareness.

I'm unsure if it implies the their thoughts being completely free from being influenced by your expectations - it seems this can still work - host can influence tulpa and tulpa can influence host, however in the case of a non-independent tulpa, the influence of the host is usually far greater.

Personally, I think this is the cornerstone of what a tulpa is and what makes them a person on their own. Without this they're just (simple) imaginary friends or a (roleplaying) character or an extension of yourself which is intertwined or blurred too much into your own personality.

It's that one thing which makes you think they're actually conscious/sentient and not a puppet you control.

Due to historical reasons (such as people wanting to say they have a tulpa, even if it's not yet "there"), people will still call non-independent tulpas tulpas, even if the original definition of the term (as given by FAQ_Man and Irish) required it.

In my current view, independence is a gradient and it's usually a matter of the tulpa learning to think independently from you and at the same time as you - starting from simple things such as involuntary emotional responses to mindvoice and self-imposition and more.

It's best developed by giving the tulpa attention, narrating to them, and just letting them act on their own - not forcing their actions, but actually curiously watching them respond to you by themselves in any way they can.

Thinking and giving attention to your tulpa at the same time also seems to help a lot here, especially when you start noticing them acting/responding on their own while you're thinking something completely different.

If a tulpa is completely incapable of thinking on their own, I'm unsure it's really fair to call it a tulpa yet, however as they develop, that should change - although a different possibility also exists, which would be that of really bad communication, that is, the host paying no attention to/not noticing the tulpa whatsoever.

Note that it's possible for a tulpa to be independent without them yet learning to speak properly - all it requires is them being able to act on their own (independent movement and emotional responses/changing moods and a sufficiently alien presence/distinct essence would be good examples of this).

Autonomy also usually implies not only the ability for thoughts to be private, but also for the tulpa to be able to sustain their own thoughts for extended periods of time, that is, for them to be able to think even when you're not focusing on them at all.

 

The subjective perception of parallelism, a tulpa's seemingly autonomous actions and their sense of will, their ability to reason by themselves outside the host's awareness, your ability to sense involuntary emotional responses from the tulpa, their ability to speak by themselves, their ability of unassisted possession and the host's ability to dissociate from senses during it (and switching) do seem to be directly connected, although the development of these skills does not seem to happen all at once, but it seems to be more of a gradual thing, with one skill driving the other, and the development itself driven forward the more you interact with the tulpa and the more attention you're giving them while expecting them to act like a person, independent of your own will.

 

 

Parroting:

Making the tulpa speak by yourself, pretending the tulpa speaks, roleplaying as the tulpa or any other way you can direct "their" speech yourself.

 

What isn't parroting: The tulpa talking by themselves and with their speech not coming from what you expect them to say. You not knowing what the tulpa will say until after they've said it (and you've parsed it) - the speech feeling like it comes from another person - the tulpa.

What is parroting: Making the tulpa speak consciously, running simulations of what the tulpa would do, roleplaying as the tulpa/pretending to be the tulpa, thinking for them/partial thought translation, etc. Speech that you implicitly know comes from you - that is, a preconscious awareness of the source of some thoughts as being 'you'.

A big part of making a tulpa is learning how to sense them and watching them act on their own. Parroting is not directly harmful in itself as it's just you using your imagination consciously, although it's very important to learn how to let your imagination act by itself - independent of your will.

Some people use parroting to teach themselves and their tulpa how to do things in their imagination, or how their voice is supposed to sound, however non-parroted responses should feel different from self-generated responses. A tulpa acting on their own is usually quite noticeable and sometimes jarring, although it may also be weak in the beginning.

A lot can be said on parroting than I'm willing to say in a few lines, so I'll link some longposts on that:

http://community.tulpa.info/thread-misinterpretation-of-%E2%80%9Cassuming-sentience-from-start%E2%80%9D-philosophy

The definition I'm using is closer to the one used by Irish/Dane. Recently (past year), people have tried to limit the definition of parroting to purposefully generated responses while being actively aware of that fact, although I find that definition lacking as it merely results in a lot of people thinking their tulpa is responding to them, but lacking any shred of independence.

It may seem that my definition of parroting is too crisp and black-and-white: in reality the boundry between your will and the tulpa's will may be quite thin when you're starting off and actually making that boundry thick enough that they're essentially a whole other person to you which acts in parallel with you is the entire purpose of this process - don't be afraid of parroting per se, merely realize what is and what isn't and encourage the tulpa to grow and become their own being.

 

tl;dr: Parroting is generating a tulpa's responses yourself, or their responses feeling generated by yourself. Learning not to parrot is learning to sense your tulpa act on their own and encouraging them to develop a will different from your own.

 

 

Puppeting:

Moving a tulpa's form by yourself. Same thing as parroting, but for visualization.

As with parroting, may be useful for developing the initial form they'll be using.

 

 

Proxying:

Relaying messages from your tulpa to other people and vice-versa, basically acting as a proxy between the tulpa and the world.

A different, but related definition: proxy possession is the same as assisted possession.

 

 

Servitor:

When refering to tulpas: roleplay character, a mask/persona for yourself, a "tulpa" lacking any independent thought whatsoever - fully parroted/controlled by you.

Some people (glitchthe3rd) and some magick people seem to call semi-autonomous "programmed" mental constructs and NPCs without sentience servitors. Using the latter meaning, some wonderlands could also be considered a "servitor" (please don't ask me about people who try making tulpas whose entire body/form is a wonderland...), or any mental construct devoid of their own conscious will.

 

Etymologically "Servitor" is meant to signify "the one who serves" or one who has no will of their own or who obeys any and all commands.

I don't use this word at all, although when I see it used, I tend to pick the first definition if the reference is to their tulpa being a servitor (Dane/Irish's definition), or the second one if they're talking about non-free-willed constructs.

The small subtle difference between them is that the second definition may allow the construct some autonomy from yourself, but the construct could be too simple to call it sentient or a person.

It's usually believed that it's possible to turn a servitor into a tulpa. My personal opinion on that is that it is possible, although emotional attachments and old habits may make it harder for some people to make that step.

Some may consider the default state of any construct (including a tulpa/thoughtform) to be a servitor, at least until they start showing actions, emotions and thoughts of their own.

 

 

Vocal:

The tulpa being able to speak/think at you, usually in detailed auditory thoughts, or that so-called mindvoice. It implies sentience and sapience.

 

Originally independent detailed-only auditory responses were considered as being vocal - at least according to FAQ_Man's guide.

Recently people have tried to include thought-only (meaning-only) responses as counting as vocal. Other people have called that development state semi-vocal.

Personally, I consider vocality as being achieved when you're perceiving an imaginary voice which you recognize as not your own, which feels somewhat alien from your own, which may overlap your own, and which may in some cases be driven by preconscious thoughts and will to which you have no access to (thus you don't know what the tulpa will say until they say it). Sometimes vocality and emotional responses go together - you may be able to sense not only the tulpa talking to you, but also their moods, their body language and much more, although all that should feel outside your control - and not just "I'm not doing it", but "I have no idea what they're going to do" followed by surprises everywhere - you'd basically be led by your tulpa somewhere, but you wouldn't really know where they were leading you until you were there and then you'd understand what they did and that they may have had some forethought about it (some tulpas overthink things more than others).

In my opinion vocality usually comes after (some) independence, that is, the tulpa having their own will is a precursor for the tulpa talking on their own. Most people nowadays seem to disagree on this - that is, for many people it seems they'd rather get responses and then work on the tulpa's independence. I tend to think that's rushing it at best and wasting time at worst - if you're using a parroting approach to developing a tulpa, you're aware that other things need to be worked on later on (such as letting them act on their own), but if you're purposefully making the responses yourself while trying to make yourself "believe" that the tulpa is vocal while feeling it in your bones that the responses are coming from you, then you're most likely wasting your time.

A short description of true/independent vocality here:

 

tl;dr: Tulpa talking to you in mindvoice. Requires some autonomy/will from the tulpa. Parroting the tulpa's voice does not count as vocality.

 

 

A while ago I was asked to write a bit on a small issue that's not uncommon in the community, so here it goes:

 

 

On tulpa terms and semantics:

 

Most of the terms used in the community have had reasonably clear meanings originally, although some are harder to explain to anyone as they involve new qualia (example: "that alien feeling" or emotional responses or a tulpa's essence or your tulpa "actually speaking to you" or independent movement).

Despite this, most people can recognize what they are once they have the luck of experiencing it and suddenly finding that all those incomplete subjective reports seem to be matching up with their own experiences to a good degree.

 

As time has passed, a lot of people seem to have wanted to be able to claim to have reached certain levels of progress even if they haven't by the current definitions at the time, things like "my tulpa is vocal", "I can possess" (I?), "my tulpa switched with me".

Maybe the reasoning is social ( http://community.tulpa.info/thread-itbegins-png ) or maybe it's something else, but the fact is that a good deal of tulpa terms have been redefined a lot, mostly to make them mean less than they originally meant. Some people have just invented new terms for their experiences, which not too harmful, but others have just redefined terms, which results in 2 people saying they're experiencing something, when those experiences have fairly little in common.

Vocality redefined to ignore autonomy. Possession redefined to be assisted. Switching redefined as believing to be the tulpa (without a change in memories or consciousness).

It's not that these people aren't experiencing *something* - for example a change in identity to the point where you believe you're someone else, but still feel full continuity with your past self may not be switching per se, but it's a major psychological change.

Assisted possession where someone feels some slight depersonalization may have some similarities with unassisted possession, but it's not the same thing. A similar example would go for ghost/autowriting - again, similar to possession, but not possession.

Merging - a fairly controversial and not too commonly used term, usually meant to be about breaking barriers between 2 independent selves and removing the independence/parallelism/autonomy between them and sharing their memories to the point of the end-result being a single self that has subjective continuity and shared memories with both past selves - might not even have had a good definition from the start - people in this community have used it in the most strange ways, things like creating a new personality from the traits of the old one without sharing memories and with it only existing when the 2 other personalities don't, or even in unusual ways where you have 2 "non-independent personalities" and you "become" a new one that sort of feels like those two (and as no independence is involved, no memories are involved, it's just a minor change in the sense of identity).

(Similar, but less messy definitions for rarely used terms like "splitting" and "splintering")

There's plenty of other examples, although the drive some people have to redefine terms for social gain (rather than personal gain) is clear.

This wouldn't really be as huge of a problem if not for these new definitions being picked up by new people and used more and more. The worst-case scenario if such types of redefinitions continue to proliferate is that tulpas would start to be seen as an elaborate form of roleplay rather than a legitimate form of healthy multiplicity (this is already the case in some parts of the Internet, which doesn't fill me with much joy).

Threads like this are good - they can serve as a way of gauging the community consensus as well as outlier opinions and it can also serve to help newbies into falling into such redefinition traps.

 

Redefinitions aside, most terms can be interpreted slightly differently - there's no "one true meaning" that's not particular to the individual as everyone has their own belief systems, but some meanings are closer to the community consensus or closer to their original meanings and some are more distant.

I am quite curious how other people define them. Writing definitions betrays one belief system too much, so I can see why not everyone would want to put it out in the open.

However, there's no harm in doing so - by doing so you can see how compatible you are with some part of a tulpa sub-community or not - and the community is quite multifaceted.

[Guest MegaBusta]

I think a better word for NPC would be "actor". It makes more sense for simple wonderland critters (Who, like real actors, do things off of a "Script" and then when done with it, go away) and is less clunky to say than enn-pee-cee.

[Yori]

"Well it's definitely a sign that you'll have to start improving on your cognition and overall competence to get the points I'm stating. "

 

Not definite, Linkzelda. There /are/ ways to talk so that people average or above in both those fields have trouble decoding what you're saying. My cognition is above average, and if you mean my reading comprehension when you say competence, that's above average last time I checked too and doesn't appear to have dropped.

[Zero]

I think a better word for NPC would be "actor". It makes more sense for simple wonderland critters (Who, like real actors, do things off of a "Script" and then when done with it, go away) and is less clunky to say than enn-pee-cee.

 

I agree with this.

[Linkzelda]

Not definite, Linkzelda. There /are/ ways to talk so that people average or above in both those fields have trouble decoding what you're saying. My cognition is above average, and if you mean my reading comprehension when you say competence, that's above average last time I checked too and doesn't appear to have dropped.

 

EDIT:Alright Yori, since you’ve made a self-assessment of your above average cognition, a person with that level of competence should, you know, understand how to be resourceful in communicating with others despite of their presumed incoherence.

 

Now, since you’ve stated you had trouble decoding what I’m saying, you could use that same above average cognition to ask the person for more clarification (i.e. “If I’m following you right, here’s what you might be saying based on my insight. Please correct me if I'm wrong").

 

This way, when dealing with people like me, who seem to have a hard time to relate to others and get their message across (or maybe dealing with people just skim and never really read), things will be much easier for everyone.

 

Since after all, that’s what people with any mode of competence in having a discussion with others would do instead of posting their self-aggrandized assessment on their above-average cognition and competence. If we want to discuss terminology in relation to tulpa, it means asking for clarification is pretty much an immediate tool for understanding things better.

 

----------

As for NotAnonymous, if any responses I’m making for your interpretations doesn’t seem clear, please correct me and ask for more clarification. I’m just going to focus the part on “personality” that you’ve presented (I’ll try to give more responses to the other parts in the future hopefully).

 

 

Personality:

Varies per context:

colloquial use: the complex of behavioral and psychological patterns that make up an individual,

 

I can agree that personality contributes (partially) to the overall image of a person, but it shouldn’t really be used to replace of making up the totality of an individual.

 

Presuming we’re trying to observe this from the psychological perspective, self-concept or even identity would be a more practical term. And personality itself would add on to the individual’s self-schema, and a collection of a person’s self-schemas contributes to their self-concept.

 

Because if we were to use that “colloquial” term you’re presenting, a tulpa that doesn’t have a personality (a core at least), then it raises the question on what they’re really made up of. So maybe a better approach might be to state how personality contributes to the overall self-identity or self-concept of a tulpa. It’s still their “inner self,” as you’ve stated in the quotes below, but it’s just part of that and not the whole.

 

working on a tulpa: a variety of methods …My personal favorite is thinking about how certain traits feel on an implicit/preconscious/raw thought/emotional level and expecting the tulpa's essence/presence to feel like that - typically far more intuitive than the other methods and gives tangible results faster.

 

Agreed, the use of symbolism and association may yield to more tangible results. However, it’s more of influencing their identity (e.g self-identity, self-concept, character, and self-schema) rather than just their personality.

 

when talking about the self and multiplicity: a subjective individual or a 'self' or a (philosophical) person: has a consciousness, its own (free) will and sense of will/agency (different and independent of other personalities if more than one is present), a working memory, sometimes different accessible long-term and short-term memories, a distinct complex of behavioral and psychological patterns, preferences and so on.

 

So basically, having qualities of a sapient being (e.g. metacognitive skills, making symbolic meaning, using working memory by utilizing pre-existent memories/knowledge/etc.). And also being more autonomous from the host’s conscious thoughts and more intuitive with the unconscious in general.

 

Because if there were implications of the tulpa being able to be absolved completely from the totality of the host's mind (i.e. unconscious), it would raise the question to psychologists and other scientists on things like “false dichotomy,” and other derogatory terms they may potentially use.

 

Also, for free-will, if that word was implemented, if you were to present that to philosophers (or anyone really), they’d probably present soft determinism vs. hard determinism, free-will vs. no free-will and other approaches to debate on the tulpa’s presumed “free-will.”

 

Because if you were to state that the tulpa has an inherent ability of free-will and/or that there’s objective morality (rather than subjective), that might not be too persuasive for others who think otherwise (e.g. existential nihilists, fatalists, hard determinist)

 

If you mean having free-will as in being free from the host's conscious awareness and focus on them, and being able to make a subjective meaning/value/morals/etc. despite of their origins, it would be a little more plausible.

 

I don't use it much as it seems too few people like this term: multiples find it derogatory because they think it refers to the colloquial meaning (and thus it makes them less of a person and more of a persona - they may use the colloquial meaning)….

 

If I’m following you right, it seems you’re worried on the tulpa having a persona rather than being a person. And this is what makes the colloquial meaning non-sequential to this presumptive model you’re presenting. A persona is a public image, an aspect of a person’s character that’s presented or perceived by others—it’s a social aspect that doesn’t necessarily correlate to the “inner self” of an individual.

 

Using “persona” in tandem with “tulpa” sets up many implications that the tulpa can actually be perceived by others. So unless there’s some way in the future where tulpas can be distinguished from the hosts (externally), “persona” isn’t really the right terminology here.

 

Because externally, if I were to talk to someone, I wouldn’t know if they really had a tulpa talking to me. Sure, they could say their tulpa is talking, but to people who are more skeptical, they’ll be wondering if the person’s faking it or not. I can give you more scenarios, but this is the first one that comes to mind.

 

This is why “personality” is merely part of the tulpa’s overall identity or self-identity, and if “persona” gets used as being synonymous with “personality,” things start becoming non-sequential.

 

Unless of course, you can present something that might reduce that contradiction and ambiguity.

 

while people who don't believe multiple persons can share a brain find it a bad term because it implies multiple consciousness(they don't use the colloquial meaning).

 

Actually, the colloquial meaning you’re presenting, which states:

 

“The complex of behavioral and psychological patterns that make up an individual”

 

This would already will raise questions on multiple consciousness because a person that presumably has more than one tulpa would fit that categorical model. So if you were to try to settle disputes with non-believers on multiple persons/multiple consciousness, you would have to explain things even more to reduce the ambiguity.

 

Unless someone presents more examples and arguments for this (“persona” and “personalities”), based on how people are interpreting the meaning and its “universal” meaning is being confused with presumed self-identity/self-concept or even the self-schema of a tulpa.

 

 

People who tend to be metaphysically inclined may sometimes refer to this as a "soul", although that term is even more ambiguous ...and if you ignore the bit about having a physical body and only look at subjectively accessible content (consciousness/subjective experiences, memories, will), you'll be intuitively familiar with what this term means.

 

Maybe “Psyche” may be a better term to use (for a psychological observation/approach) than soul. I know they essentially mean the same thing, but unless you explain in more detail (from a psychological standpoint) of people’s predispositions towards metaphysical standpoints, it just causes more confusion.

 

And it still wouldn’t settle the debates on distinguishing between multiples, persona, multiplicity, and such. Especially when, for example, explaining things to a psychiatrist who may try to use a psycho-pathological approach (e.g. schizophrenia, MPD, DID) as a precedent to comprehend what you’re stating to them.

 

 

That said, a tulpa is not a persona or a mask (a personality template/state) which you're just changing to based on circumstances and which you're consciously controlling, even if a tulpa may have their own personas if they wish.

 

This is a better explanation compared to what you presented before on “persons” vs. “personas.” However, it still raises more questions on autonomy in general. Internally, to a host who has a tulpa, they can agree with your sentiment. But to someone who doesn’t understand, or even someone talking to another that presumably has a tulpa, they would still interpret the tulpa as a part of the host either way.

 

Because how you’re shifting through the metaphysical and psychological approaches, the person may deduce that tulpas are anomalies from other concepts (e.g. daemons, personas, anima/animus, therians).

 

And because you also accept that a tulpa having the ability to create their own “persona” (which again is only how OTHERS would perceive them), it implies the tulpa can create a “mask” or a pretentious façade of who they really are. It may be probable for them to be able to do that, since it would fit the presumptive model of a sapient being’s abilities (e.g. metacognitive, cognitive), but it’s just something that should be implied instead of stated directly in a community glossary.

 

Some people have used the term "accidental tulpa" to describe non-intentionally created personalities which have appeared. This definition essentially classifies a tulpa as being a form of self-induced multiplicity. Subjectively it should feel like you have another (subjective) person in your mind which does their own thing and thinks and acts not unlike you do.

 

Keyword here: “self-induced” It seems you’re trying to making a distinction between an “Accidental tulpa” vs. the “tulpa” definition you’re presenting (where the host would have to make conscious focus into creating one). This would imply that the unconscious, or other aspects of the host’s mind is dichotomous from the host’s conscious thoughts.

 

The “accidental” tulpa may occur due to the entrenched behavioral, cognitive, and other processes within the unconscious. But this is something that would be obvious in your definition of “tulpa” as well. Because it's a matter distinguishing between:

 

• Building competence (from the "self-induced" or "intended" desire of having a tulpa) consciously that eventually shifts into unconscious competence

 

vs.

 

• The mind creating an "accidental tulpa," which would imply the person didn't have consistent and conscious focus on wanting a tulpa. But it was rather their previous dispositions and feelings of having one in the past that may have contributed to that.

 

Even for the latter, it still wouldn't make a huge difference on the origins of a tulpa, since both are based on desires/intentions from the host in general.

 

While this definition is closer to what most people have used originally, it seems a few people nowadays would wish for a tulpa to be an advanced imaginary friend - in which case some of the definitions used here can't apply to them.

 

Yeah, it's definitely complicated. People just want to make a distinction because of how "imaginary friend" would have some kind of negative connotation.

 

 

 

TL;DR: From "persona," "persons," "personality," and how you're trying to combine psychological and metaphysical observation from others shows how people interpret the terms would cause more confusion. Maybe not to people on tulpa.info, but definitely for psychologists and other scientists that would have the predisposition in trying to understand and debate your interpretation while dealing with processing the contradicting logic from the community's generalized definitions.

 

And I understand you know how the term varies depending on the context as well, which shows condensing some of the terms down is going to be very difficult for those who think a few more sentences will make things more complicated (not referring to you though).

[Yori]

Being resourceful by editing:

 

 

EDIT:Alright Yori, since you’ve made a self-assessment of your above average cognition, a person with that level of competence should, you know, know how to communicate with others despite their supposed incoherence.

 

Now, since you’ve stated you had trouble decoding what I’m saying, you could use that same above average cognition to ask the person for more clarification (i.e. “If I’m following you right, here’s what I think you're saying: tell me if I'm right").

 

This way, when dealing with people like me, who seem to have a hard time to relate to others and get their message across (or maybe dealing with people just skim and never really read), things will be much easier for everyone.

 

Since after all, that’s what people with any competence in communicating with others would do instead of posting their self-aggrandized assessment on their above-average cognition and competence. If we want to discuss terms for tulpa, it means asking for clarification .

 

My response:

"Alright Yori, since you’ve made a self-assessment of your above average cognition"

 

It was only a self-assessment if giving information from actual tests given out by others rather than giving out the records is "self-assessment." I don't see how the results of my tests is a self-assessment, and I actually often underestimate how I actually did on things, if that's relevant.

 

update:

Looking back, I never explicitly stated that I was talking about my results after being tested, but I was implying that when I said "last time I checked too" in regards to reading comprehension. But I see that maybe someone couldn't know to take "last time I checked" literally since some people don't use it literally. So yes, I was being literal, I was told by standardized tests that I had above average cognition and reading comprehension.

 

"Now, since you’ve stated you had trouble decoding what I’m saying, you could use that same above average cognition to ask the person for more clarification"

 

I always ask you what you mean (for example, implied q on competence being reading comprehension) when I speak to you if I don't know. Not sure why you are telling me this.

 

"This way, when dealing with people like me, who seem to have a hard time to relate to others and get their message across (or maybe dealing with people just skim and never really read), things will be much easier for everyone."

 

If that were the case, it would only be people who generally need to ask what others on here mean rather than just you. And in my case I can say that it's not skimming.

 

"Since after all, that’s what people with any competence in communicating with others would do instead of posting their self-aggrandized assessment on their above-average cognition and competence. If we want to discuss terms for tulpa, it means asking for clarification ."

 

Aggrandized, haha. Perhaps the test givers had bias towards me. You say "instead" as if asking what you mean is relevant here when I have no questions, and as if I gave out that info randomly rather than in response to your insinuation that my competence and cognition are below average, which btw, was totally unneeded and surprised me. True colors, perhaps. This was only about what was there before Sands responded that way; I have no questions atm since I'm only reading in the middle.

[Linkzelda]

Alright, thanks for the clarification Yori. I deeply apologize for the convictions I had for your response from before. Also for the skimming part, not you, just others that have a bad habit of doing so. When I stated self-assessment, it's more like your observation of you and your abilities, not based solely on some tests you took (I didn't even assume you derived that belief from that). Since it would be obvious that standardized tests and such can't really quantify all subjective and objective intelligences/competence/metacognitive skills/etc. a person may have.

[Yori]

Yeah, ik what self-assessment is, wasn't a self thing.